The Rightest Thing
by Demented Vampiric Zombie
Summary: A short little one-shot of Snape remembering an event from his past. This is not, I repeat, NOT a romance! This goes with a much longer fic I'm writing, but it can be read alone, and will be for a while because the other one isn't online quite yet.


**Disclaimer: If I was the actual author of Harry Potter, I would NOT be putting my stories on any website with the word fan in the name...**

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As young Severus Snape put his books away to stop studying and go to bed, he heard the door to his first year Slytherin boy's dormitory creak open. He found this incredibly strange, considering he was the last boy in his year still awake. He turned around and was startled to see that Bellatrix Black, a beautiful, popular sixth year. He was not very alarmed that she was there, but he was more frightened of the bloodthirsty look in her eyes. 

She looked around and saw that someone was still awake.

"Come with me," she said menacingly.

"Why?" asked Severus.

"Because I've won an award in dueling club for most accurate spell casting, quickest reactions, and hardest to hit with a jinx/hex/curse, and you're a little firstie that can barely hold your wand straight," Bellatrix uttered as she threateningly raised her wand. "And I know some of the worst, most painful, and deadliest curses known to wizard kind, and I'm not afraid to use them, even on a poor defenseless eleven-year-old half-blood. Now move it!"

Severus, sensing danger, stood up and began walking toward the door. Bellatrix walked out, with him closely behind her. They walked all the way through the common room, which was mostly empty, and deep into the dungeons.

When Bellatrix finally stopped walking, they were in outside the door of an unlocked dungeon. Severs looked inside and saw that there was dried blood on almost every wall, as though it had once been used for torture. There were some old, rusty shackles on one of the walls.

"Go in," Bellatrix said dully.

"No," Severus replied, in a sudden rush of bravery. He felt as though, if he entered the room, he was not likely ever to come back out.

"You have two choices. You can either go in there by your own free will, or I can force you to," Bellatrix said. She walked around so that she was behind Severus and poked him in the back with her wand. "But I'm warning you now," she bent down to whisper in his ear, "I don't curse gently."

At this comment, Severus decided that whatever Bellatrix was going to do to him in that room was going to happen, and there was no sense in making it worse. He didn't know what was going to happen to him if he went into that room, but he did know what was going to happen if he didn't. At least, if he went in there way a small chance it wouldn't hurt _that bad_, even if it was unlikely.

He walked into the room and stood waiting in the corner, as far away from the shackles as he could get. Bellatrix followed. She closed and quadruple locked the door behind them, and then turned around to face him. The look on her face was one to kill.

Immediately, Severus's fears were confirmed when Bellatrix pointed toward the shackles and commanded, "Go over there."

"Why?" Severus asked, trying to delay her for as long as he could.

Perhaps he sounded as fearful as he felt, for her response to this was, "I'm not planning on killing you, my father just sent me a note telling me to test the new skills he taught me over the summer on some first-years."

"Then what are you going to do?" Severus asked, still trying to hold Bellatrix up for as long as possible.

"You'll see," said Bellatrix simply.

"You don't seem to be too anxious to get on with it," Severus said slowly.

"I have great patience, thanks to my father, and the longer it takes you to go over there so we can start, the longer I will take," Bellatrix said sadistically. "I don't care if you're in pain for five minutes, or five years, that all depends on you. Even though, I don't like to rush these things, so the longer the better."

Severus gulped. He'd had to endure prolonged pain before, as his father often beat him when he was at home, but when he came to Hogwarts, he had hoped to get away from that. He had been at school for more than three months without getting hit once, and he was just beginning to get used to it. And his Muggle father had limited abilities when it came to causing pain, at least, that's what his mother always told him. Bellatrix was a pure-blooded witch, and she definitely knew some magical means of torture. He had never experienced that sort of pain.

"There's a first time for everything," he said to himself.

He walked toward the chains quickly, deciding that the quicker she made it, the better. He could feel himself trembling in fear.

"Much better. I see you aren't the sort of person that's going to enjoy this," Bellatrix said as she came over to attach him to the wall. She did this in a sickeningly happy way.

She soon discovered that the chains were much too long to suspend Severus as high as she would like, but this proved to be a minor difficulty, as she just had to tap her wand on them and they were immediately shortened.

This made Severus exactly eye level with her. Her eyes looked even scarier that way.

Bellatrix walked slowly across the room so that she was standing in the middle on it, then she turned around. She raised her wand once again. Severus expected her to cast some horrible, rare curse on him. She didn't.

Instead, she conjured a knife. A short knife. With a jagged edge. It looked as though it had been primarily designed for torture.

It could not have been much more obvious that Bellatrix had never done this to a living person before as she slowly walked toward Severus, dazed, as though deep in thought. She seemed to be trying to figure out what she wanted to do to him first.

When she got close enough for him to feel her breath on his face, she seemed to come back to her senses. She pulled down Severus's right sleeve to reveal the frail, pallid arm of an eleven-year-old boy.

"You're shaking?" she asked, grinning malevolently as she pressed the knife to his wrist, just off the side of his vein. She knew exactly how hard to press so that she did not break the skin, but would've if she put another microgram of pressure on it. "What are you afraid of? That I'm going to do _this_?"

She pressed the knife deep into his flesh, causing him to cry out with pain. Her smile widening at his agonized screams, she proceeded to drag the knife down his arm, nearly down to the elbow.

After repeating this with his other arm and both of his legs, she vanished the knife, as though she would not need it any longer. Severus was terrified. Bellatrix seemed to just be warming up.

Now Bellatrix moved farther away. She pointed her want at him. She looked as though she was afraid to get any closer. Severus could not find his voice and couldn't ask why.

"_Silencio!_" was the first spell she used on him. Now he knew he had no voice to find. "I love the sound of screams, but I can't have anyone hearing you," she explained.

Now Severus was really petrified, if no one had heard him screaming yet, why should they now? He didn't have time to the matter through, though.

"_CRUCIO!_" Bellatrix shrieked. Unlike with the knife, she seemed very used to using this curse on living people.

Severus screamed. And screamed. And screamed. And screamed. He screamed so loud that, even though no audible sound emitted from his lips, the scream was palpable. The vibrations of the screams were so loud that it was actually possible to feel them in your chest, like at a concert. His pain was so horrible and absolute that it seemed a miracle that his body could withstand it without being shred to pieces, much less actually _survive_ it.

It lasted for little more than three seconds, but to Severus, it seemed like days.

Bellatrix removed the silencing charm for a moment. It first, the only sounds coming from him were panting and wheezing, as though he was having a panic attack. But he quickly calmed himself down to only breathing heavily.

"Please! Don't do that—again!" Severus panted. "I'll do anything you—want, just don't do it—again!"

"I was going to, but I don't think your body could survive a double dose of Cruciatus. You're too young and fragile," Bellatrix said slowly. "You said you'd do anything if I didn't do it again?"

Severus was so relieved, it was immediately visible on his face. He nodded, hoping she wasn't going to ask him to harm himself for her own entertainment.

"Don't tell anyone. Absolutely no one can know about this. No teachers, no students, not even a random Muggle on the street. No one. Never," Bellatrix said lowly. She almost seemed scared. "I don't want to get kicked out of school, nor do I want to get sent to Azkaban, so nobody can ever know. Is that clear?"

"Yes."

"And if you ever tell anyone about this, I will know, and you will be right back on that wall. But, next time, you won't ever get off," Bellatrix said evilly.

**end flashback**

As the thirty-eight-year-old Severus Snape put the sleeve down over the twenty-four-year-old scar on his right arm, he finally fell asleep, for the first time on is own in the three days since he had killed his once tormenter, convinced that, all considered, he had done the right, or at least the most appropriate, thing to do.

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**A/N: Don't forget to review, and tell me what you think! (Even if you think it's horible. Just don't comment on my overuse of commas, if you don't mind. I can't help that.)**


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